To walk or not to walk: Underwater homeowners face moral dilemma

January 21, 2011: LAS VEGAS NEVADA. Mine is a nice house. Big enough for a family and all of its furniture and clothing and toys and books and papers and dogs and more books and miscellaneous junk and even a cat. Decent-size back yard, for a suburban tract home. Good-enough neighborhood. Sometimes I really dislike that place.

I’m far from alone in this. “I’ve seen sellers agonize over whether or not to walk away from their homes,” says Realtor Diann Tonnesen of Prudential American Group; she’s a 28-year veteran of this crazy market. “It’s not what they want to do, it’s not how they were raised. But at the same time, they feel it would be stupid not to in this market.” She explains that even people who don’t have financial hardships can wrangle a short sale for a house they no longer want to pay for, if the investor — not necessarily the bank, but the investor who ultimately holds the note — agrees. (Some investors would rather get the money from a short sale than risk getting less down the line in a foreclosure,) states the Las Vegas Sun.